Stormwater isn't just a big-city problem

After a groundbreaking ruling last year that required Seattle and a handful of other large governments around the Puget Sound area to control polluted stormwater runoff, a state hearings board this week decreed that smaller cities and counties will have to start working on the same thing.

However, the ruling by the Washington Pollution Control Hearings Board calls for "reasonable and flexible time frames" for the smaller governments, meaning for some it could be three to five years before they take the most important steps toward controlling the pollution.

A key concept is whether the government should require, or merely permit, "low-impact" development techniques to control stormwater, which is considered the biggest source of many of Puget Sound's worst pollutants.

The smaller cities -- from Aberdeen to Yarrow Point, including Bellevue, Redmond, Edmonds, Everett and Federal Way -- merely have to take steps toward requiring the enviro-friendly construction methods.

"It's a significant step forward, and it's going to lead to more of these new green-building techniques," said Bruce Wishart of the environmental group People for Puget Sound, which joined the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance in challenging rules proposed by the state Ecology Department.

Steps to minimize the polluted runoff focus on minimizing concrete and other hard surfaces that cause rain to flow away, carrying pollutants such as oil and copper residue from cars' brakes. Examples include vegetated roofs, special pavement that allows water to soak through, and "rain gardens" that slurp up runoff.

The environmentalists were stopped short in their effort to convince the quasi-judicial hearings board that the 85 smaller cities and counties should have to take the same steps as Seattle, Tacoma and the counties of King, Pierce, Snohomish and Clark.

The larger governments, which have been legally on the hook to control stormwater pollution since the early 1990s, will have to require the easy-on-the-Earth building methods "where feasible," the hearings board ruled last year. It was the first time nationally that a state hearings board had required the low-impact building methods.

For the smaller cities, the rules issued by Ecology in 2007 marked the first time they were subject to Clean Water Act requirements to control stormwater.

Ecology noted that the hearings board, while ordering the agency to make changes that will require smaller cities to go further than Ecology proposed, also acknowledged that the state agency had gone beyond what's required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"I'm quite happy with the decision," said Ron Lavigne, Ecology senior counsel. "The board recognized the standard they had set for (large governments) wasn't necessarily appropriate" for the small jurisdictions.

But, notably, the hearings board said small- and medium-sized cities can't "backslide" as a result of its ruling. If they are requiring the techniques now, they cannot loosen the requirements.

"You've got municipalities like Bellevue that have been doing a great job of regulating stormwater for years," Lavigne said. "They're much more ahead of the curve than, say, the city of Camas down in southwest Washington, which is still ... figuring out what the heck's required."

Builders were not involved in the litigation before the hearings board. But industry officials have said many of their members already are employing low-impact development techniques. In fact, builders' representatives have said, more developers would use those methods if many governments didn't make it such a hassle to do so.

Municipal officials often view them with suspicion because they are out of the ordinary, builders say.

The hearings board's ruling said Ecology has to rewrite the rules governing the smaller local governments so they have to:

Identify barriers to requiring low-impact building.

Come up with ways to overcome those barriers.

Take other actions Ecology requires under "reasonable and flexible time frames."

That "reasonable and flexible" standard will apply even to the next update of the rules, which is due out in 2012, the hearings board ruled.

"Then," said Bill Moore, head of Ecology's unit in charge of stormwater, "we get to do this all over again."